Spirituality and Religion

Blogs about approaches to The Truth.

Thanksgiving Day Spirituality

Link Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

1097-relax-and-succeed-itis-our-spirit-that-sees

Today is the Thanksgiving Long Weekend in Canada, so today I’m featuring a re-blog that may prove valuable as normally independent people find themselves spending concentrated time together.

May you too have a productive day at finding reasons to be grateful for the graces of the universe. Enjoy:

 

Day to Day Spirituality

The Flow of Soul

Scott McPherson2 Comments

1371 Relax and Succeed - Do not be afraid

If we want to see the course of how our thoughts impact reality, the quote above is a good example. The vast majority of people would chain their thoughts together in a habitual way and then conclude that this statement to be about our biological death. In fact, it applies just as neatly to the death of our ego.

Rephrased it could read,

Do not be afraid

We are all part of an infinite collection of beings whose existence is to flow from one state to another, so we need not fear our next unknown. 

Everyone before you has died

You cannot stay

Any more than a baby can stay forever in the womb

Our births define the beginning of a phase of experiences, and it is only the course of our individual thoughts that lead us to feel separate from each other, this flow, and all that is. 

Leave behind all you know

All you love

Leave behind pain and suffering

Whenever we cease our flow of thoughts, and all of the attachments, expectations and desires they bring, we can access our sensations of connection, flow and all that is.

This is what death is

With no personal thoughts to create our illusion of separateness, we are left in a state of connection to the larger flow of being. This is what it is to live in the gap of life with wisdom, clarity and purpose.

1371 Relax and Succeed - Our egos darkness

We are infinite beings with infinite possibilities. Yet each morning we each rise to fill our minds with memories of our pasts, resurrections of belief, and ideas about our future. It is as though we are are a patient with amnesia; a blank slate on which external sources can rewrite our old and painful identity.

We do that repetition despite knowing that we have seen others –and we ourselves have at times– had moments of awakening in which we suddenly saw a small glimmer of our freedom. A new job, a proposal, a divorce, a new place to live, a willingness to move past some event, or even some simple change in our habits, or in how we choose to view our Selves.

It is our nature to develop this ego. For we cannot enjoy the pleasure of being found –or of coming home– if we are not first lost and away. And every path can only be defined by where the path is not.

This is the natural yin and yang of life. This is why our wisdom is a practice, as all lives will ebb and flow between our thoughts of being lost, isolated and separate, to a state of being, wherein we thoughtlessly return to a state of knowing, connection and meaning.

We are never wrong. We are never lost. Our only purpose is our journey. And through our experiences of both wants and needs, we can come to appreciate the vastness of what we represent. And once our appreciation is full and complete, we are free from the bonds of resistant thought, leaving us to naturally flow back into the greater whole.

My own task is simple. I am here for only one purpose. I am here to help others move from the separateness of thought, to the wholeness of being, but they light they see is always theirs.

peace. s

The Laughing Buddha

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

1318 Relax and Succeed - Laughing Buddha

It gets mentioned often in my work because it really is important. It should be seen as a deeply spiritual act.

When did we each last laugh? Even when things are heavy, eventually we will need to lighten our emotions or we’ll be crushed. And laughter shouldn’t be something we leave to chance. We should have it as a part of our daily agenda in life.

We should all look at our weekly calendars and in them we should do our best to include some time with a funny friend, or to see a funny movie, or watch a funny show, or play, or to play some game that makes us laugh. We can even just watch comedians on YouTube.

Maybe we should even colour code times in our calendars where there is a high likelihood of laughing. Too little colour? That’s a week lacking in soul.

How and why we laugh doesn’t matter. It’s the laughing itself that we should see as being very real spiritual development. If that feels like a cheat it isn’t. Getting healthy not only can be enjoyable, to me it’s always been very weird that anyone ever thought that getting healthy needed to be painful. Why would that be? Catharsis maybe yes, but liberation feels great.

1318 Relax and Succeed - Laughter is a form

Let’s all make sure to keep our portals to joy open. Let’s laugh deeply and often and intentionally. We cannot lose touch with that part of ourselves. That version of us should be familiar.

Many times when working with someone new, I will see them react to hearing their own laugh for the first time in –sometimes years. So that ability might feel innate –and it is– but the more we do of it the better we get at finding reasons to do it. And it’s those moment by moment wins that add up to a great life.

We should considering making a category in our calendars for laughing. We need to ensure we get at least one good shot at some belly laughs every week at minimum and, if we can pull it off, we should go for one a day minimum. Everything over that is like icing on the cake. It just keeps getting better.

What a brutal spiritual guide I make, huh? Laugh more, I say. It’s because it’s a form of joyful prayer. When it is done so fully that we become the laugh –and cease for a time to be our ego-selves– that is where a state of enlightenment is discovered; a place where there is no time, and where we perceive no self to be judged or be wrong.

In that place we are always complete.

Laughing melts our egos into the energy of joy, expressed in a present moment. It’s like being in a church with walls made of light. Let’s all make sure we spend some time there on a regular basis.

peace, s